The present invention relates to electric switches and more particularly to miniature switches designed to be fitted in printed circuits.
Miniature switches for printed circuits are known which have a body of insulating material inside which is positioned a switch mechanism, and designed to establish or cut an electrical link between connection terminals projecting outside the body and a part of insulating material for activating the switch mechanism.
Switches of the type described above are grouped in modules with several ways, for example eight, positioned in a parallel manner in a common insulating case of parallelepiped form.
In known switches of this type, the connection terminals generally project in relation to one of the main sides of the case and they are constituted by stems designed to be inserted in holes provided in the printed circuit board in order to be soldered to the corresponding conductors of the printed circuit.
Such switches lend themselves badly to the flat transfer technique which is more and more widely used for the manufacture of printed circuit boards.
In addition, due to the relatively large volume taken up by switch mechanisms and activation means, these switches are so bulky that on a printed circuit board they take up more and more space compared with that taken up by the integrated circuits, the size of which is getting smaller and smaller.
The invention therefore aims to remedy the above-named drawbacks of miniature switches of the prior art, by creating a switch which, being smaller than traditional switches, is particularly suited to the technique of fitting components on the surface of circuit boards designed to support them, and which lends itself particularly well to the flat transfer technique.
A subject of the invention is therefore an electric switch having a body of insulating material which contains at least one recess into which enter the ends of at least two connection terminals, the opposite ends of which project outside the said body and a switching mechanism having an electrically-conducting element fitted so as to slide in the recess between a first and second stable position, corresponding respectively to two states of the switch, characterized in that the electrically-conducting element is constituted by a stirrup of which a elastic middle part, curved away from the bottom of the recess, is in contact by its ends with the bottom into which enter the corresponding ends of the connection terminals, and of which the arms extend towards the opening of the recess of the body and appear in windows defined in the opening, on either side of an insulating element for retaining and pressing the stirrup against the bottom of the recess by acting on the curved elastic middle part of the stirrup, the arms of the stirrup constituting the means of moving the latter between the first and second positions.